The Devil Next Door

They had already tried to take his kill once. A woman and two ratty-looking girls with kitchen knives. Some near-submerged, misty portion of his brain told him that they were once Maddie Sinclair and her two daughters, Kylie and Elissa. But that meant nothing to him. They were scavengers, predators. He had chased them off. He had wanted the woman. He wanted to fuck her on the bloody floor, maybe the girls, too. But they had run off.

He wondered where his own daughters were.

He studied the walls of the kitchen. They were splattered with blood and decorated with bloody handprints. When Dick had been dressing Megan out, he had been amazed at his bloody hands so he pressed them against the walls and made prints. He liked the way it looked so he kept dipping his hands into his wife’s torso and painting the walls with red handprints. Those who came here would know this was his lair. That he would defend it.

He heard voices in the distance.

Crawling across the floor with his axe, he pulled himself up by the sink. The smell of organ-meats and intestines made his mouth water, his belly growl. He peered out the window. He saw a man out there, across the street. A man and a girl. It took him a moment, but then he remembered that the man was Louis Shears and the girl was Macy Merchant.

Dick wondered if Louis would give him the girl.

Maybe he would trade her for meat.

Dick slid down to the floor and studied his handprints on the wall and contemplated his wonderful new world. He would need to go out soon. Go out and hunt. But first there were other considerations.

He needed to eat.

Breaking apart several kitchen chairs, he built a fire on the kitchen floor.

Soon, the smell of roasting meat filled the room…

20

Louis stood there with Macy by his side, listening to the empty house.

They called out a few times and listened to their voices echo and die out. Louis had been in a lot of houses and it was funny how something as subtle and abstract as an echo could tell you things. Maybe it had something to do with sound waves and maybe it had something to do with some buried sixth sense we all carry within us. Regardless, he could tell that the Merchant house was empty…though that wasn’t exactly the word that was bouncing around in his head at that moment: unoccupied. As in, Louis, this house isn’t so much empty as unoccupied, if you can dig the subtle nuances of that.

He stood there, swallowing down a sour taste in his mouth. “Maybe she stepped out or something,” he suggested and wondered why he did not believe that anymore than Macy seemed to.

“ No,” she said. “She’s always home now. She has a job, Mr. Shears, but she doesn’t go on until eight tonight.”

Louis was almost afraid to ask what that job was. The way Macy said it, not going on until eight, made it sound like Jillian had found a job stripping on stage. Thing was, his mind drew a blank when he tried to make small talk, so he just asked. “Oh yeah? Where’s your mom working these days?”

“ She’s a cocktail waitress over at the Hair of the Dog,” Macy told him. “Do you know the Hair of the Dog, Mr. Shears?”

The way she said it, Louis just bet that she knew all about the Hair, as it was called locally. The Hair of the Dog was a sleezy bump-and-grind joint out on the highway that catered mostly to truckers and bikers and tough working class types from the mills and factories. Nice place. Louis had only been in there once with a couple guys for a bachelor party and they’d left pretty quick. They were worried the women there might kick their asses, let alone the men. As he recalled, the waitresses were all topless.

“ Sure, nice place,” he lied.

Macy grunted. “You’re either a bad liar or you don’t get out much, Mr. Shears,” she told him. “No offense, but there’s nothing nice about a place like that.”

“ I’m sorry, Macy.”

She shrugged. “Why? I gave up trying to babysit my mom years ago.”

There were things Louis could have said, but it was absolutely none of his business so he kept his mouth shut. Poor Macy. Such a good, sweet kid. She deserved better than Jillian. That was for sure.

They made a quick search of the main floor and Jillian was nowhere to be found. There were a couple overflowing ashtrays and empty beer cans on the kitchen counter, a sink filled with dirty dishes, the remains of a frozen pizza on the table with a couple flies mating on it, but that was about it. In the living room there was a basket of washing that had spilled over onto the floor, scattered magazines and newspapers with rings on them like they’d been used for coasters.

But no Jillian.

“ This place is a dump, isn’t it?” Macy said, obviously embarrassed.

“ No…I wouldn’t say that.”

“ It is, too, Mr. Shears. Quit being nice about things. It’s not necessary. I know what everyone thinks about us. It’s no big deal. My mom is a lazy, drunken slob and a…a…well, I know what people say.”

“ Who cares what they say?” Louis told her. “It’s nobody’s goddamn business but your own.”

“ Thanks, Mr. Shears,” Macy said. “That was nice.”